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Vinyl Wednesday: Don’t Burn The Witch… Heavy Speed Compilation

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Last week I completely missed the posting on account of a craziness with life happenings. I was gone every day until it was time to come home and sleep. Not a fun week at all. I’m back to a somewhat normal schedule now so posting can resume.

This is a bit of a weird choice. There’s not any design aspects I really want to get deep into with this release so I’ll just tell you why I bought it. Naners and I were at The Exchange in Elyria and I was just kind of browsing the vinyl selection looking for any true gems. Now, I had NO money to spend because I still wasn’t gainfully employed at the time but that never stops me. Anyway, Nancy ended up finding and buying an excellent copy of Pantera’s Power Metal album and I was just finishing up looking through the 7″ and 10″ records when I found this. She found the gem on our trip and I suppose I got a polished rock.

Obviously something like this album would catch my eye and sure enough, at the end of the 10″ record pile this little thing was resting. I noticed the front image and typeface at the top and knew it might be something I like. I turned over the jacket and saw Toxic Holocaust being featured and decided I’d buy it. It was a whopping $5 and I’d say it was well worth it.

The large image on the front is a somewhat-pixelated illustration of a witch burning with a bit of silver foil stamping at the top. Naturally, upside-down crosses make an appearance (they are a must for things like this).

The back is a mashup of heavy metal eccentricities. Gothic-styled corner graphics, chains, crazy logos, nutty song titles, leather-clad guys, goofy poses, long hair, steel spikes, bullet belts, jean jackets and fire. I honestly can’t think of any other heavy metal imagery that could be squeezed onto this thing. It’s just beautiful.

Joel Grind is the mastermind of Toxic Holocaust. He’s got a very trashy/punky style that I dig the most. Just look at that photo! Bullets, studs, eye makeup, cutoff heavy metal t-shirt and a clenched fist. How can you not instantly love this guy?

I wasn’t familiar with any of the other bands on the compilation but they were all equally satisfying in both an audio and visual sense.

The labels are super simple. Just black text on a red label. Very DIY and it has that underground metal feeling.

If I’ve made you just a little bit curious as to what Toxic Holocaust may sound like, check out the song below.